Geopolitics

hasanejaz88

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Giggsyking said:
Agree, the same thing can be said about the Ukraine armbands though.
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Well I was joking about the politics thing, it's just funny that when it comes to Palestine it is 'don't bring politics etc etc' but when it's Ukraine there is no argument.

But yea I don't see the Arab countries showing any solidarity with Palestine, I doubt any of them care to be honest. That is a big problem within the Muslim world, half hate the other half.
 

Giggsyking

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MBS said to the Atlantic magazine hitting back to the US threats, that the KSA has 800 bn dollars investment in the US.
 

Foxbatt

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A lot of people talk about the whataboutery because when Anglo Saxon countries do things no one talks about it and is swept under the carpet.
Look what Australia has done now with the UN SPT.
 

VidaRed

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Foxbatt said:
A lot of people talk about the whataboutery because when Anglo Saxon countries do things no one talks about it and is swept under the carpet.
Look what Australia has done now with the UN SPT.
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GENEVA ( 23 October 2022) – The United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) has decided to suspend its visit to Australia due to obstructions it encountered in carrying out its mandate under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT), to which Australia is a party.

The SPT delegation has been prevented from visiting several places where people are detained, experienced difficulties in carrying out a full visit at other locations, and was not given all the relevant information and documentation it had requested.

Despite its continued efforts to engage the authorities for the resolution of the problems, the SPT continued to be obstructed in the exercise of its mandate. As a result of this, the SPT members felt that their 12-day visit, which began on 16 October and was due to run until 27 October, had been compromised to such an extent that they had no other option but to suspend it.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-rele...ends-visit-australia-citing-lack-co-operation
 

berbatrick

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frostbite said:
It is back to the Soviet era.
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As much as it is possible to see a coherent thought in Putin's statements...
He started by blaming Lenin for recognising Ukraine and Khruschev for "giving away" some land (Crimea mostly). He recently quoted from the most famous anti-Soviet dissident, Solzhenitsyn, who was also a right-wing nationalist. His other quotes have been from Dostoevsky, another reactionary Tsarist, and from other nationalist anti-Soviet dissidents, all of them anti-liberal apart from being anti-left. The seemingly out-of-place rambling about J.K Rowling, trans people, and cancel culture, fits in with this pattern.
Also, his war and his troops have been blessed by the Orthodox church, which was heavily repressed for most of the Soviet period.

This is not back to the Soviet era. It is back to an older Russian nationalism, before the formal nationhood of colonies like Ukraine existed.


I wonder if this sounds familiar...

Solzhenitsyn urged Russia to cast off all non-Slav republics, which he claimed were sapping the Russian nation. The Nobel Peace laureate called for the creation of a new Slavic state bringing together Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and parts of Kazakhstan that he considered to be Russified.

This united Slavic state built on Russian Orthodox faith, he wrote, would provide an alternative to the West's decadent liberalism.
...
Disappointment at Solzhenitsyn's mounting nationalist rhetoric, says Sverstiuk, was all the deeper in Ukraine due to Solzhenitsyn's Ukrainian origin.

"Ukraine is a separate topic since Solzhenitsyn, whose mother was Ukrainian, had a particular attitude toward Ukraine. He sought to reject his Ukrainian half and uphold his Russian nationalist half.
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For the last bit, look also at the biography of the chess player Sergey Karjakin, another psycho nationalist.
 

2cents

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This is funny enough as interviews go

 

VorZakone

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I was reading this article and...isn't the bolded part complete BS? If I recall correctly, I've literally heard Michael Hayden (former NSA) say that North Korea looked at Hussein/Qaddafi and took notes.

Nor is it the first time that a country has faced an existential attack after giving up its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Muammar al-Qaddafi’s Libya abandoned their weapons ambitions and both leaders were later deposed following Western military action. There is no evidence that either experience prompted other countries to seek nuclear weapons.
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https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/ukraine-wont-ignite-nuclear-scramble
 

stefan92

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VorZakone

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stefan92 said:
But the Norh Korean program already existed when those events happened. So I guess they mean that no additial nuclear programs were started due to this?
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I guess that's true though after Hussein/Qaddafi any notion of NK giving up their nuclear weapons for something in return is now out of the question.
 

VorZakone

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Qatar got me curious. Where do they stand in Middle Eastern geopolitics? What's their angle?

If I recall correctly they were accused by other countries of supporting revolutionary waves during the Arab Spring. Why would Qatar help the protestors?
 

2cents

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VorZakone said:
Qatar got me curious. Where do they stand in Middle Eastern geopolitics? What's their angle?

If I recall correctly they were accused by other countries of supporting revolutionary waves during the Arab Spring. Why would Qatar help the protestors?
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Qatar have been associated with the Islamist/Muslim Brotherhood side of things over the last decade or so. So loosely aligned with Turkey and the Islamist parties in places like Egypt and Tunisia that attempted unsuccessfully to win power after 2011. That, probably more than their relatively good relations with Iran, is what prompted the Saudi-led blockade against them. The anti-Islamist Arab states and parties have been especially opposed to how Qatar have used Al Jazeera to undermine their authoritarian regimes, hence the targeting of Al Jazeera journalists in some places.

In recent years the hostilities bred by these alignments seem to have cooled as the Syrian and Libyan conflicts have wound down a bit. I would say the region’s geopolitics are currently in a bit of a flux, and it’s unclear where Qatar will emerge if and when things settle into some new pattern.
 

moses

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I have no idea either, yet.
Raoul said:
Do you think Arab states, whose governments are increasingly friendlier with the Israelis and increasingly indifferent to the Palestinian issue, will go for this ?
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Personally I'd love to see it happen but as you say the governments and the people are not always aligned in their support for the Palestinians.
 

moses

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I have no idea either, yet.
hasanejaz88 said:
Well I was joking about the politics thing, it's just funny that when it comes to Palestine it is 'don't bring politics etc etc' but when it's Ukraine there is no argument.

But yea I don't see the Arab countries showing any solidarity with Palestine, I doubt any of them care to be honest. That is a big problem within the Muslim world, half hate the other half.
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That's everyone unfortunately. Look at the nonsense in Northern Ireland. People just rush to hate, even without the touch paper that is Religion, they will fight over most things.
 

Pintu

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Brave from the parliament. Unlikely to be followed up by the Council or the commission though...
 

berbatrick

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Very very interesting, esp given the war: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/autonomy.htm

It is quite natural that in such circumstances the "freedom to secede from the union" by which we justify ourselves will be a mere scrap of paper, unable to defend the non-Russians from the onslaught of that really Russian man, the Great-Russian chauvinist, in substance a rascal and a tyrant, such as the typical Russian bureaucrat is. There is no doubt that the infinitesimal percentage of Soviet and sovietised workers will drown in that tide of chauvinistic Great-Russian riffraff like a fly in milk.

It is said in defence of this measure that the People's Commissariats directly concerned with national psychology and national education were set up as separate bodies. But there the question arises: can these People's Commissariats be made quite independent? and secondly: were we careful enough to take measures to provide the non-Russians with a real safeguard against the truly Russian bully? I do not think we took such measures although we could and should have done so.

I think that Stalin's haste and his infatuation with pure administration, together with his spite against the notorious "nationalist-socialism" [Stalin critised the minority nations for not being "internationalist" because they did want to unite with Russia], played a fatal role here. In politics spite generally plays the basest of roles.
...

It is sufficient to recall my Volga reminiscences of how non-Russians are treated; how the Poles are not called by any other name than Polyachiska, how the Tatar is nicknamed Prince, how the Ukrainians are always Khokhols and the Georgians and other Caucasian nationals always Kapkasians.

That is why internationalism on the part of oppressors or "great" nations, as they are called (though they are great only in their violence, only great as bullies), must consist not only in the observance of the formal equality of nations but even in an inequality of the oppressor nation, the great nation, that must make up for the inequality which obtains in actual practice.

The Georgian [Stalin] who is neglectful of this aspect of the question, or who carelessly flings about accusations of "nationalist-socialism" (whereas he himself is a real and true "nationalist-socialist", and even a vulgar Great-Russian bully), violates, in substance, the interests of proletarian class solidarity, for nothing holds up the development and strengthening of proletarian class solidarity so much as national injustice; "offended" nationals are not sensitive to anything so much as to the feeling of equality and the violation of this equality, if only through negligence or jest- to the violation of that equality by their proletarian comrades.
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hasanejaz88

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nimic said:
Maybe, but I want to hear him say it.
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Didn't Biden openly say if Russia attacks Ukraine they will make sure Nordstream 2 gets stopped, it even surprised the German journalists how blatantly he said it? Suffice to say if it were Russia or another terrorist organization then they would have announced it, don't understand why they would want to hide that.
 

nimic

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hasanejaz88 said:
Didn't Biden openly say if Russia attacks Ukraine they will make sure Nordstream 2 gets stopped, it even surprised the German journalists how blatantly he said it? Suffice to say if it were Russia or another terrorist organization then they would have announced it, don't understand why they would want to hide that.
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But Nordstream 2 did get stopped, it was already dead.

If you need a reason for why Russia wouldn't announce it, then you've answered your own question. This is the reason. They've sowed doubt and confusion. Another reason is that such an attack being officially sanctioned and announced would only bring NATO/EU countries even further into the conflict. Russia likes to pretend they're fighting the West already, but I think they'd be surprised at how much their "opponents" are holding back. There are a lot of countries doing a lot, but they could do a lot more if they felt sufficiently incentivised.
 

frostbite

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nimic said:
But Nordstream 2 did get stopped, it was already dead.

If you need a reason for why Russia wouldn't announce it, then you've answered your own question. This is the reason. They've sowed doubt and confusion. Another reason is that such an attack being officially sanctioned and announced would only bring NATO/EU countries even further into the conflict. Russia likes to pretend they're fighting the West already, but I think they'd be surprised at how much their "opponents" are holding back. There are a lot of countries doing a lot, but they could do a lot more if they felt sufficiently incentivised.
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Exactly!

Here is a true story. Or ... it could be a true story!

A Russian wakes from a 12 month coma, and being Russian, immediately goes to get a shot of vodka at the local pub. While there he gets into a discussion with another Russian and asks him about the latest news. The other Russian tells him "We are at war with NATO. But we are winning on all fronts."
"How many casualties have we taken?" the first guy asks.
"110,000 by the latest count" The second guy answers.
"And NATO?"
"Oh, NATO hasn't arrived yet."
 

hasanejaz88

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nimic said:
But Nordstream 2 did get stopped, it was already dead.

If you need a reason for why Russia wouldn't announce it, then you've answered your own question. This is the reason. They've sowed doubt and confusion. Another reason is that such an attack being officially sanctioned and announced would only bring NATO/EU countries even further into the conflict. Russia likes to pretend they're fighting the West already, but I think they'd be surprised at how much their "opponents" are holding back. There are a lot of countries doing a lot, but they could do a lot more if they felt sufficiently incentivised.
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I don't understand this, the notion is that governments, or atleast the bigger ones, already know Russia did it but aren't announcing it. Wouldn't they be retaliating already if this were the case?

Since the start it has been reported that Russia did this to sabotage Germany's economy.
 

Pintu

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Giggsyking said:
https://www.reuters.com/business/en...hing-hide-nord-stream-blast-probe-2023-01-12/

So is it becoming obvious who sabotaged Nordstream? How stupid EU can be?
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I don't think anyone is stupid. Russia is still the main suspect, as far as we know. If they did it, and the European countries know it, they will only announce this when they are willing to escalate the conflict. It would be disastrous for them to accuse Russia of this and not retaliate.

If another party did it (say the US, for example), then the EU has zero interest in announcing it publicly, but it will be used behind closed doors to obtain something from the US. Publicity would only fuel division inside NATO and benefit far-right pro-Russian groups in Europe. The EU is already at odds with the US on several economic issues, there is no need to create more.
 
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